My first home made terrarium

[kortex]

I thought i would upload some pictures of my first terrarium that i decorated myself. i used to have snakes in this before but i modified it to house my new geckos! At the moment this terrarium houses two geckos. Do you think that is to small? Maybe i should spilt them apart as they grow bigger? that what i had in mind at least, thinking of getting another terrarium the same size and have one in each!



First i covered the glass-sides of the terrarium with black silicon to make it look better from the outside and to protect the glass from the expandable foam I'm going to use! Also as i have the terrarium in my living-room i think it seals off some of the movements around it.

three parts of pipes that I'm going to put together to make a "cave"

Both sides is covered with silicon and the pipes are put together.

My home made "mountain" made from styrofoam and covered in tile-fix

The mountain is put into the terrarium with the pipe "cave" on top and the back panel is covered in the green expanding foam! You can also see the home made cave to the left take its form. cave made of styrofoam with a ramp and glued together stone roof!

simpel flower-pot that i put some color on and made my own lamp-cover!

Its starting to take shape! here with some coloring done!

Final photos of the terrarium! moist.hide and water bowl is in place and the heating and thermometers are up and running

CAVE, APPROVED!

 

[clemsonguy1125]

Amazing, awesome, but I would use a uth over a heat bulb if at all possible.

 

[Dog Shrink]

There's some flexwatt tape under the left hide and the moist hide you can see it in picture 5 I think it is. It is a very neat looking project but a couple things I don't like are the heat lamp, & I don't see any type of probe thermometer to measure belly heat temps on the hot areas. How are you controlling and monitoring the het tape? Not crazy about the substrait but it does look nice, altho not a natural substrait for them, and looks larger than what a leo could accidentally ingest so not bad. Overall tho it looks like a fun place for a leo to live.

 

[kortex]

There's some flexwatt tape under the left hide and the moist hide you can see it in picture 5 I think it is. It is a very neat looking project but a couple things I don't like are the heat lamp, & I don't see any type of probe thermometer to measure belly heat temps on the hot areas. How are you controlling and monitoring the het tape? Not crazy about the substrait but it does look nice, altho not a natural substrait for them, and looks larger than what a leo could accidentally ingest so not bad. Overall tho it looks like a fun place for a leo to live.

Hey Dog Shrink thanks for your reply! Just one question, I'm not very good on English, what do you mean with "flex watt tape" ? And whats wrong with the heat lamp?

Also the photos of the terrarium is slightly old, i have re organized the caves and such and installed two thermometers one standing on the floor of the warm side on top of the heat-mat and the other one laying on the "cold" side, was thinking of switching to probe-thermometers for a more accurate reading.

The heat tape is ATM on 24/7 more or less it doesn't turn super hot and the temperature on the warm side on top of the heat-mat is a steady 80-86F

and what do you think is a nice substrate? i have been looking on a new one for some time now and i have been reading some forums posts and such but not came up with what i want to use, been thinking about sand or some sort of "stones" but that's seems like a bad idea.. any ideas

 

[kortex]

Amazing, awesome, but I would use a uth over a heat bulb if at all possible.

What is an UTH?

 

[TokayKeeper]

Amazing, awesome, but I would use a uth over a heat bulb if at all possible.

Kortex...under tank heater. Great start for a first home build too!


Clemsonguy...it serves the same purpose through a different means of application. A bulb can burn out, but when a UTH malfunctions or a thermostat malfunctions temps will sky rocket. This vary thing happened at a recent reptile expo, where someone I personally know lost an animal because a brand new heat matt failed and cooked said animal. Furthermore, the bulb in this case is heating the slate and cave, so not only do the geckos have just a simple hot and cool side of a tank but they also have a basking site (slate) and a slightly cooler yet still heated cave. It's actually a more natural means to providing heat (in my opinion) and a form of heating I do with a few of my geckos. That said, I do use UTHs and flexwatt on my cages/racks; it's cheaper than having 30 ten or twenty gallon tanks all heated with 40 or 60 watt bulbs.

FWIW...I spy flexwatt in the center of the tank running to underneath the cave on photo left.

 

[Dog Shrink]

There's nothing wrong with using flex watt heat tape at all, it just doesn't cover as much of a single area moreso a length of an area unlike a mat. Your heating element should take up approx. 1/3rd of your tank floor surface with no heating element, on the other side it should stay room temperature to provide your temperature gradient. The heat lamp in red I don't like as much as the blue moonlight bulb simply because of my own leos reacton to red bulbs. He will not come out and explore when a red light is on him but he will with a blue so I can only assume the red light bothers him. Also your hot side temp should be, on ground level, between 88-95*F so you need just a bit warmer for proper digestion. The heat lamp being that close to the slate might make the slate surface too hot so if you're thinking of staying with a heat lamp basking area I would make sure you put a temperature probe on there to make sure it stays in that acceptable range and doesn't go over 100*F. As far as substrait goes you really want to stay away from anything your leo could accidentally (or intentionally) eat such s sand, small stones, wood chips etc. Maybe layers of flat shale rock, slate tiles or even high end vinyl simulated slate tiles (the self adhesive ones) would be a great choice for a nice natural look that is safe.

 

[IslaReina]

kortex, I think I know why you are confused. What you have in your tank for heating is called flex-watt tape in English, not a heat mat. A heat mat is more of a rectangular black pad that you stick to the bottom of one side of the tank. An UTH (under-tank heater) and a heat mat are the same thing. The flex-watt tape, which you have, is perfectly fine to use. Definitely get a thermometer with a probe so you can monitor the correct temps of 90 degrees Fahrenheit (sorry I don't know the conversion to Celsius). Do you have a thermostat to control the temps on the flex-watt tape?

 

[kortex]

FWIW...I spy flexwatt in the center of the tank running to underneath the cave on photo left.

Yes there is a flexwatt running along the back side of the terrarium, from side to side. its a bit to long but its all i got ATM. i don't think the temp on the cold side is affected of it being on. I can read about a 75-78f heat on the ground at the cold side.

 

[kortex]

kortex, I think I know why you are confused. What you have in your tank for heating is called flex-watt tape in English, not a heat mat. A heat mat is more of a rectangular black pad that you stick to the bottom of one side of the tank. An UTH (under-tank heater) and a heat mat are the same thing. The flex-watt tape, which you have, is perfectly fine to use. Definitely get a thermometer with a probe so you can monitor the correct temps of 90 degrees Fahrenheit (sorry I don't know the conversion to Celsius). Do you have a thermostat to control the temps on the flex-watt tape?

Thanks for clearing that out for me
And i have ordered two new thermometers for my terrarium now, one that shows both C and F degrees

 

[leoguy1]

WOW! That's the most incredable home-made terrarium EVER!:main_yes::main_thumbsup:

 

[im faster]

Looks great.. but you should get rid of the bark

great job on painting also

 

[mrs looney]

it looks well cool would love to do something like that for me gecko bt i aint got the brains for it lol well done

 

[leoguy1]

I agree with "im faster".

 

[kortex]

Yea i have done some changes to the terrarium now, removed the bark that i normaly use for my snakes and replaced it with larger darkish tiles and it works great

 

[kortex]

Bark removed, tile added, also changed waterbowl and moisthide

 

[M_surinamensis]

That cave built into the background looks nice, but is a pretty terrible idea. You should never use anything that you can't open to clean or easily get the animal out of when you need to. A deep U bend with narrow entrances has the potential for some unpleasant consequences.

 

[houseb]

wow the tiles look really nice in there! Awesome job

 

[leoguy1]

I also think it looks a little to... foresty. Leos live in the desert. But it still looks cool.

 

[leoguy1]

But I think it looks SO cool, that maybe I shoud do that for my baby leo.